We feel the creator of the ever-popular line "They f*ck you up, your mum and dad", probably didn't like birthdays much, and maybe wasn't one for cake or gaudy wrapping paper.

Which is why we're wishing him a wonderful day through the means of his best ever quotes, and listening to him read his poems '1914' and 'Lines On A Young Ladies Photograph Album'.

Both poems were recorded as part of the Sunday Sessions - two tapes recorded by Larkin in 1980 in Hull, which were published as a bestselling Faber audiobook, and are now being released on vinyl, as the record-collecting poet would have loved himself.

If he were around, we would have wrapped these up in a bow before asking him for a personal recitation. Instead, we're delivering them via the Internet to you. Hooray!

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Philip Larkin Quotes

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"I wouldn't mind seeing China if I could come back the same day."
IMAGE: Faber Books

"Sex is designed for people who like overcoming obstacles."
IMAGE: Faber Books

"Originality is being different from oneself, not others."
IMAGE: Faber Books

"Poetry is nobody's business except the poet's, and everybody else can f*** off."
IMAGE: Faber Books

"I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you're an artist, by children if you're not."
IMAGE: Faber Books

"Seriously, I think it is a grave fault in life that so much time is wasted in social matters"
IMAGE: Faber Books

"Books are a load of crap"
IMAGE: Faber Books

"Something, like nothing, happens anywhere."
IMAGE: Faber Books

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do."
'This Be The Verse,' High Windows (1974)
IMAGE: Faber Books

"To start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted"
IMAGE: Faber Books